Purchase rewards have become popular as way of increasing customer loyalty in the credit card industry. Some card issuers grant rewards monthly based on customer purchases. These rewards accumulate in an account and may be converted to cash, in the form of a rebate or used to purchase goods or services from the card issuer or a card issuer partner or affiliate (e.g., airline, hotel chain, car rental chain, retailer, etc.).
A shortcoming of rewards, however, is that unless they are received in the form of a cash rebate, there are limits in the way that they can be used. Also, to date, there are no effective ways to grow purchase rewards without increasing the purchase activity of the reward card. Furthermore, rewards typically only amount to a small percentage (i.e. 1 percent) of the purchase activity on a card. Thus, for any one account holder, the amount of accumulated rewards is so small as to preclude investment of rewards in certain types of investments that require minimum investments that can be quite high as compared to the amount of purchase rewards a typically card holder might accumulate in a year.
Accordingly, there is a need for a purchase reward system that ameliorates some or all of the shortcomings of conventional rewards programs. Purchase rewards have become popular as way of increasing customer loyalty in the credit card industry. Some card issuers grant rewards monthly based on customer purchases. These rewards accumulate in an account and may be converted to cash, in the form of a rebate or used to purchase goods or services from the card issuer or a card issuer partner or affiliate (e.g., airline, hotel chain, car rental chain, retailer, etc.).